Maggie is sent off to spent two weeks with her grandfather in the English countryside. It is there that she encounters a strange animal that gets caught in an illegal trap. Environmental issues, endangered species, conservation, speech impediments, and family estrangement are recurring themes in this young adult story. The author takes on a lot of issues and manages to do it fairly well, although I probably would have enjoyed the story more had she scaled things back. ( )

I'm sure this is a wonderful book, so I'm giving it 8/10 on credit, but after 10 minutes I decided to abandon ship because animals as main characters is a huge NOPE for me. I can't handle it when they inevitably suffer. ( )

Maggie's stutter has caused her much trouble in school and her father wants to send her away to a place to correct it, despite rumors that this place treats children badly. Her mother strikes a compromise to send Maggie to her maternal grandfather's home in the English countryside for a few weeks in an attempt for an improvement while there. There, Maggie finds an old-growth forest with a secret -- a snow leopard who has been dumped there quite unexpectedly. But the forest belongs to a landed lord who wants to tear it down for mining rights. Can Maggie and her grandfather prevent the deforestation and save the snow leopard from harm?

This book has great representation of a disability (namely, stuttering) and a wonderful message about conservation. However, I cannot emphasize enough just how boring I found it. Those positive messages are lost in pages and pages of extra "filler" and repetition of the same old things.

Every other chapter oscillates between Maggie and Rumpus, the snow leopard. Yes, we have to see the same exact scenes again from the point of view of the snow leopard. There can be a pretty good book in here just from Maggie's point of view. There could be an entirely different book just from the snow leopard's point of view. There is literally no reason to have both of them reporting on the same thing. There really isn't.

Also, it took the book one-third of the way in for Maggie and Rumpus to meet. That's far too much "set up" to get to the main point of the book. But the book liked meandering down all these side plots, instead of having one clear goal and one clear message -- its strongest one about conservation efforts. The beginning parts could have been simplified with the mysterious prologue about an animal being deposited in the forest that didn't belong there and then Maggie having glimpses of something in the woods that she can't identify before the big reveal that it's a snow leopard. Having the chapters from Rumpus's point of view took away any tension, suspense, and/or surprise that would have given this book a "hook" to keep readers turning the page.

I seem to be in the minority here as the book has critical praise and awards, but I found it far too boring to be enjoyable and I can't imagine recommending it to the intended audience of children who give up even quicker than me on reading a book that doesn't capture their attention almost immediately.

The backmatter with information about snow leopards, conservation, reforestation, and stuttering resources is the best and most useful part of the book. ( )

In England in 1963, a girl named Maggie is thrown out of her third school for her stuttering, and she's afraid her parents will try to send her to an institution. At the same time, a snow leopard cub called Rumpus lives with his sister Rosie at Harrod's; he is bought and given as a gift, but, predictably, this goes awry, and he's dumped in the English countryside, in Cornwall...coincidentally, so is Maggie, with her mother's father, Fred. The two meet in the ancient forest called Wildoak, and Maggie becomes fiercely devoted to protecting the snow leopard and saving Wildoak from the landowner who wants to raze it. But first, she has to convince her grandfather that Rumpus isn't just a big farm cat.

Beautiful, and with an epilogue from Maggie's adulthood.

See also: A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll, The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus

Quotes

"Only if we understand, can we care.
Only if we care, will we help.
Only if we help, shall all be saved." -epigraph, Jane Goodall

It just wasn't fair. Why should she be sitting in this tree, hoping for some kind of miracle, when everyone else was going to school, saying whatever they wanted, whenever they felt like it? (80)

She had encountered this same stare so many times - judgment, verdict, and sentence all rolled into one. (168)

"Listen to me," he said. "We do what we can, in our own small ways, and sometimes that's enough to make a difference. Not always, but sometimes. I really do believe that when lots of people, perhaps hundreds or even thousands of people do what they can, things really will change." (191-192)

It was as if a timer had just been flipped and the grains of sand were quickly slipping through. (215)

She had said what she wanted to say....She could be heard. (291-292)

"But the truth is, and I believe this with all my heart, there's room in this beautiful, complicated world of ours for all of us. Just as we are. In fact, there is a need for it." (299)

It won't be easy, but it's going to be okay. (308)

"This b-beautiful, c-c-complex world is the only one we have. My grandfather taught me it is up to each of us to do what we c-can in our own small ways to protect it. Our actions count. Our voices m-m-m-matter. We must use them." (314) ( )

Good story, well written, good resources ( )